1. Field of the Invention
An aspect of the present invention relates to a recoil starter in which a rope reel is rotated when a recoil rope is pulled and transmits the rotation to a driving pulley connected to an engine crankshaft, thereby starting the engine.
2. Background Art
There is known a recoil starter (for example, refer to JP-2001-132591-A) in which a rope reel is rotated when a recoil rope wound therearound is pulled, a cam is rotated by the rotation of the rope reel, the rotation of the cam is transmitted to a rotational member (e.g., flywheel magnet or driving pulley) coupled with a crankshaft of an engine via a clutch mechanism (e.g., centrifugal clutch), and the crankshaft is rotated via the rotational member to start the engine. In this recoil starter, a shock-absorb power-accumulation member is interposed between the rope reel and the cam so that a shock caused by an abrupt fluctuation in load on the engine is not transmitted to the rope reel, and the rotation force from the rope reel is stored in the shock-absorb power-accumulation member so that the stored rotation force is released to easily start the engine.
In the above conventional mechanism, the rope reel to be rotated by pulling the recoil rope, the cam to transmit the rotation force to a starting pulley that is coupled with the engine crankshaft via the clutch mechanism and the spring case to house a spring as the shock-absorb power-accumulation member are rotatably supported by a supporting shaft formed within the case, and a one-way clutch mechanism is formed between the rope reel and the spring case to transmit the rotation of the rope reel in the engine starting direction to the spring case. When the recoil rope is pulled to rotate the rope reel, the spring case is integrally rotated via the one-way clutch mechanism to transmit the rotation of the rope reel to the starting pulley via the spring case. And, when the rotation of the starting pulley is stopped by the starting resistance of the engine, the rotation force of the rope reel is stored in the spring. The one-way clutch is formed between the supporting shaft and the spring case to prevent the reverse rotation of the spring case.
In the conventional recoil starter, the starter case is fixed to an engine-side housing with bolts. Further, since individual parts are formed to be assembled together with screws one by one, assembly man-hours increase, and a certain amount of time is required to complete the recoil starter.